Agent terminal - powershell - no longer cmd.exe?

[leetic3]

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

in a recent update, agent terminals became read only and forcibly stay in powershell and ignore the old default terminal. this is problematic as i have many cursorrules built for the agent knowing its in cmd.exe.. how can i change it back to cmd.exe?

Steps to Reproduce

windows, run agent.. it’ll be in powershell by default

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 1.7.23 (user setup)
VSCode Version: 1.99.3
Commit: 5069385c5a69db511722405ab5aeadc01579afd0
Date: 2025-09-30T02:52:09.100Z
Electron: 34.5.8
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.1
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26100

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

[leetic3]

unable to paste img on topic creation now..

heres my settings.json too that i updated.. and it still doesnt work..

    "terminal.integrated.shellIntegration.enabled":false,/* added this and it doesnt help anything*/
    "terminal.integrated.profiles.windows": {
        "PowerShell": {
            "source": "PowerShell",
            "icon": "terminal-powershell"
        },
        "Command Prompt": {
            "path": [
                "${env:windir}\\Sysnative\\cmd.exe",
                "${env:windir}\\System32\\cmd.exe"
            ],
            "args": [],
            "icon": "terminal-cmd"
        },
        "Git Bash": {
            "source": "Git Bash"
        },
        "select default profile": {
            "path": "C:\\Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe",
            "args": []
        },
        "Ubuntu (WSL)": {
            "path": "C:\\Windows\\System32\\wsl.exe",
            "args": [
                "-d",
                "Ubuntu"
            ]
        }
    },
    "terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.windows": "Command Prompt",
```

[leetic3]

no way to change agent to cmd.exe?? everyones using powershell on windows? seriously?

a simple curl turns into something excessive like:
powershell -Command “Invoke-WebRequest -Uri …. -UseBasicParsing | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Content”

says now deprecated?

and then it says i should be using cmd.exe but its not?

[leetic3]

“legacy terminal tool”… i highly suggest not removing this or at least letting users pick what shell to use? i’m curious on the reasoning for this.. the new terminal being locked down isn’t overly helpful and i didnt notice any immediate benefit of being forced into powershell..?

[pot2mayo]

@leetic3

indows, run agent.. i

Same issue on my side, apart from the fact that I want to use git bash. But the Agent stubbornly stays in Powershell whatever I do.

Also reported here:

Agent mode not using default terminal on Windows

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)? Cursor IDE Describe the Bug On a Windows machine, cursor 1.7.39, when setting my user settings as below: { "terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.windows": "Git Bash", "terminal.integrated.profiles.windows": { "Git Bash": { "path": "C:\\Program Files\\Git\\bin\\bash.exe", "args": ["--login"], "icon": "terminal-bash" } }, "terminal.integrated.automationProfile.windows": { "path": "C:\\Program Files\\Git\\bin\\bash.e…

Cursor is just unusable with Powershell as default terminal, none of the agent command work.

[pot2mayo]

@liudhzhyym You last post actually worked as a temp fix for me. I reported it here

Agent mode not using default terminal on Windows

UPDATE: After checking this post, I tried to turn the “Legacy Terminal Tool” option ON [image] My Agent starts with the correct default terminal. [image] Good temp fix for now but it still looks like a bug to me that the default terminal is not used by the Agent without turning this option ON.

[leetic3]

i understand what they’re trying to do, just improving the agent terminal and breaking it out a little.. but not being able to pick its default shell is an obvious issue/bug..